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birds, nature, spirit

Boat Harbour Day Trek

Today we walked over the mountainous terrain of the southern end of the island, to visit Boat Harbour. We planned to go a more level route via Mutton Bird Point, but that track was closed by an avalanche, so having already climbed about 50 metres we decided to continue via Intermediate Hill. It was another 200m climb over about 1 kilometre, to the summit, where sadly the views mentioned in the walking guide were now obscured by growth. However the forest was lovely, and we had glimpses of Mt Lidgbird and Balls Pyramid as we descended to the south.

Here we met the track to Boat Harbour, stopped for a rest and a snack, and then continued our descent along a creekline, towards Rocky Run.

Passing through an almost mythical forest of pandanus, kentia palms, tree fern, tall stately trees certainly distracted us from our aching legs, which would have preferred some level walking. Fresh water flowed beside us from time to time, so we refilled our water bottle, and stayed cool in the shade of the trees. It must have been about four hours after leaving the cottage when we arrived at Boat Harbour! We found a shady grassy patch above the rocky beach, ate our lunch, and I fell asleep while S went off to draw. The rocky strand is quite unusual here, and such fascinating rocks, lots of coral and other flotsam and jetsam included.

Mt Lidgbird towers over the beach …. I just had to climb out onto the southern rock shelf to get this photo of the beach and mountain together. A cool swim soon refreshed us, and we set off for the return trip, back through the heavenly forest, this time avoiding intermediate hill, instead taking the Smoking Tree Ridge track back to Lagoon Road, where we still had to walk several kilometres to retrieve our bikes, which we had left near the airport where the Mutton Bird Point Track started. Almost seven hours after leaving we got home to the cottage. Now there will be a few hours of lying about, wondering what possessed us to do all that climbing!

This was our view of the mountains at our backs as we walked north towards our bicycles …. note to self … no more mountain climbing this week please ….